


The Spotless

by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves)



Series: Spotless [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: And someone needs to explain to him what Demi is, Angst, Bucky needs a hug, CIVIL WAR SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Mid-Credits Scene, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Demi!Steve, Denial aint just a river in Egypt, Happy Ending, Loss of Identity, M/M, Memory Loss, Natasha is going to need more vodka, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve is terrible at relationships, T'Challa is our lord and saviour, Wakanda, via ANGST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 13:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6855952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeAreWolves/pseuds/BetteNoire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Steve</i>, the face on the screen said, dropping its gaze. <i>I wanted to say first of all, thank you for everything you've done for me. I've had a lot of time to think here in Wakanda, and...</i> A sigh, seventy years of weariness in one breath. </p><p>Then he looks up again. <i>I wasn't worth it.</i></p><p>Bucky chooses to fix himself. And Steve realises he's nearly lost Bucky again, because he's been too busy being Captain America to be a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spotless

The message from King T'Challa comes six months after Steve had left Wakanda; after he had left Bucky. Six months that had been filled with almost frantic activity: first on the run, then the dual flurry of rebuilding damaged friendships among the Avengers, and campaigning against the Sokovia Accords. The repeal vote was coming up soon and Steve had spent nearly every waking moment of the past month meeting with Senators and Congresspeople and UN officials, fighting for every vote. Through it all, Sharon had been by his side, the perfect ambassadoress. Few of the elected officials they were lobbying expected the political skill and fierceness hidden under her good looks. And Steve had appreciated-- no, had _needed_ her insight into how normal people felt about superheros and the damage they caused, as well as the good they did. It had helped him pitch his arguments in a far more voter-friendly way.

But God, sometimes Steve just wanted an opponent he could punch and be done with it.

If you had asked him at the time, he would have said the war was the worst of days. The cold; the fear; the glide of death's dark wing over every single day... but now he wonders if it wasn't the best time of his life. It was easy to tell who the bad guys were. There were friends that you didn't have to pretend with, who didn't want anything from you other than the unspoken promise that you'd always have each other's backs. You knew where you stood, with everyone around you.

Then Steve's mind rolls back even earlier, to two young boys poring over a lavishly illustrated Lives of the Saints, one of the few possessions Sarah Rogers had brought with her from Ireland.

_Who's your favourite saint, Stevie?_

_Saint Brendan. Because he set off to find paradise, and he did._

_Yeah, but then he left, the dumb Mick._

_But... that's beautiful, though. He found paradise and left it again, because he had things to be getting on with at home. It's really poetic, Buck._

_Sap. He shoulda stayed._

_Who's your favourite, then?_

_Saint Sebastian, because he lived. They shot him full of arrows and he lived. And he's not old and gross like the other saints._

Maybe he is St Brendan, Steve thinks, always turning his boat away from paradise. Or maybe, just maybe, he just needs to work a little harder, get a few more things done, one more circuit of the same old islands, same old troubles in new coats, and then one day the Isle of the Blessed will be on his horizon. And he won't have to leave.

He is reaching for his dress uniform, for another dinner Sharon had set up with another Senator, when he notices the message.

T'Challa says that Bucky has been awake for a month, and would like to see him. Something in T'Challa's voice worries Steve. It sounds wary, guarded. He calls back immediately, and arranges transportation and entry for two weeks. He wants to see Bucky, but the vote in the Senate is in ten days and he can't leave now. There's too much at stake.

 

* * *

 

Congress repeals the Sokovia Accords. Steve breathes easily for the first time since Lagos. He owes so much of it to Sharon... he glances at her, watches her as they fly to Wakanda. Natasha is piloting the quinjet; Sam has also come along; seeing Wakanda was a childhood dream of his and T'Challa was kind enough to extend the invitation to him as well.

Steve loves Sharon, he thinks. They've dated quietly, in a very old-fashioned way. Well, not old-fashioned: there were plenty of girls Bucky had gone all the way with on the first date. Just... taking it slow, then. Steve had been under so much stress from the constant rounds of politicking and the still-raw fallout from Zemo's plot (both interpersonal and geopolitical) that he hadn't been much in the mood for sex.

He'd never been that interested in sex anyway, Christ, not like Bucky, who apparently at puberty had gotten his share of hormones and Steve's and an extra helping on top of that. For Steve growing up, sex had just seemed like an awful lot of bother for something not very interesting or comfortable. And it was somewhat hypothetical in any case since no girls wanted to go with a weed like him. (Hell, his first kiss had been _Bucky_ , being gross and stupid the day before his 15th birthday.) Then after the serum, he wasn't short of offers, but nearly all those offers were people treating him like some sort of fairground prize to win which, it turned out, made him even unhappier than being ignored by the entire female population of Brooklyn. Only Peggy really saw him, all of him, and that was one of many reasons why he'd fallen in love with her. That, and her wonderful competence, and fiery wit, and because she was a fighter, like him.

Another fear gnawed at his chest, as well, and with Banner in the wind he had nobody to ask. Would he age, with the serum? Or would his cells keep getting repaired, keeping him physically in his twenties forever? If things did become more permanent with Sharon, would he watch her grow old, while he never changed? Could he cope with that? His life partner, drying up and blowing away like Peggy had, only having to watch it happen day by day?

“Penny for your thoughts?” Sharon asked, touching his forearm.

“Wow, I've finally found something that hasn't gone up in price,” Steve snorted.

Sharon rolled her eyes and batted him in the shoulder affectionately before going back to the briefing reports she was reading.

 

* * *

When they touch down, they are greeted by a pair of Dora Milaje, King T'Challa's elite female bodyguard force. It's early afternoon, and Steve is told that T'Challa and Bucky are both waiting for him, and the others will be escorted to a royal guest villa. Once again, he gets an uneasy feeling, that everything's not right. Natasha picks it up too, and whispers, “want some company?”.

Steve nods, then presses a goodbye-for-now kiss on Sharon and laughs at Sam when he backs up a step and says “don't try it, Rogers”. Steve grins and extends his hand instead. Sam squeezes it and gives Steve an earnest look. “If you need to talk when you get back to the villa, you find me, hear?”

Steve pulls Sam into a hug. “Okay, Steve! Ribs! Need my ribs,” squeaks Sam, half-joking.

The Dora Milaje driving them, Abeni, takes them past the scientific complex where Bucky had been in cryo. They continue up a winding hillside road to a smaller facility adjacent to the palace, a low-rise building surrounded by gardens. Steve gasps at the beauty all around him. If Wakanda isn't paradise, it's certainly doing a good job of faking it.

T'Challa waits for them at the doorway and Steve bows, while Natasha drops into a low curtsey. “Your Majesty,” Steve says. “How is he?”

T'Challa nods in acknowledgement, and takes Steve by the arm, leading him into the buildling. “We woke him six weeks ago to check his health. We wanted to make sure our cryogenic suspension system was not harming him in any way. He was surprisingly curious about a number of things. He caught up on what was going on in the world, and in America--” and here T'Challa smiled at Steve, though with little warmth. “And spoke to several of our leading neuroscientists.” T'Challa paused, guiding Steve into a small conference room. “Your friend made a choice, Captain Rogers.”

There was something ominous in T'Challa's tone. Steve felt his his heart skip, and his veins fill with ice water. “What happened,” he hissed, instantly regretting how aggressively it came out.

“Steve,” said Natasha, squeezing his arm.

T'Challa indicated a chair. “Please, sit. He will tell you himself.”

A video screen appeared in midair and blinked to life. Steve gasped as Bucky appeared on it. His hair was still long, but pulled back, and he was cleanshaven. He wore a simple white shirt, left sleeve rolled up and pinned. He looked tired, but lighter somehow, as if a great weight had come off his shoulders. He was fidgeting, and ran his hands through his hair, causing a few locks to escape the tie. “Uh...” he began, his voice rough with disuse.

Bucky pressed his lips together and looked into the camera, and even on video, the intensity of his gaze left Steve breathless. How _pure_ he looked in that white shirt. All he'd wanted so long, since waking up, was to have Bucky back, and then when he finally got him back it was in the middle of a complete disaster where he was run so thin he had hardly a moment to spend with him, to just... be. He assumed that later, once everything was under control, they'd have time. Then Bucky announced he was going back into cryo and it all happened so suddenly, and Steve was left thinking that he'd never even hugged Bucky, never told him what it meant to have him back, how profoundly it made things worthwhile for Steve just knowing he was alive. “Oh, Buck...” he whispered.

 _Steve_ , the face on the screen said back, dropping its gaze again. _I wanted to say first of all, thank you for everything you've done for me. I've had a lot of time to think here in Wakanda, and..._ A sigh, seventy years of weariness in one breath.

Then he looks up again. _I wasn't worth it._

He says it again after a long pause, because Steve is already saying “No, Bucky, no--”

“ _I was not worth it, Steve. I'm never going to be right again. I... wasn't right, even back in Brooklyn. It's not just a question of getting rid of Hydra's switches in my head._

_The Wakandan scientists have a technique they use to cleanse the mind of trauma and of pain. T'Challa didn't bring it up at first because it's pretty radical, but his scientists eventually discussed it with me. I've decided to do it, Steve. I don't want to remember anything any more. It all fucking hurts. Everything fucking hurts._

_But because so much of me is... broken, it's not going to leave a lot behind. I probably won't recognise you, or remember anything. But when it's over, I'll never be a danger to anyone again._ A wry smile. _I_ _won't even remember how to fight._

_I'm able to do this because I know you're okay, Steve. You have your friends to protect you, and you've finally got your Carter to be happy with. She's got just as mean a right hook as her great-aunt, too. I'd just be in the way, in your life now. Or on the receiving end of that right hook. Again._

_King T'challa is going to let me stay in Wakanda for the rest of my life. Which may be quite a long time. We both agree it's safest._ Bucky looks around, towards a window, judging by the way the light illuminates his pale-blue eyes. _Gated country; nobody's going to get any bright ideas about trying to make me a soldier again, and if anything does go wrong they got this Black Panther guy who can kick my ass._ There's an amused snort from off-camera, presumably where T'Challa is standing. _Once I finish the procedure the new me will figure out what it wants to do with itself. Old me has some ideas, but new me might have different ones._ Bucky drops his gaze again and a shy smile passes over his face. _I know one thing, though. I spent seventy years in shitty fuckin' underground bases where I was only let out to kill people. Now I'm somewhere warm and beautiful and if I can help it, I am never going inside again._

_I know you're going to not understand this, but it really is the best choice for me. It's the only way to pull the sickness out of me. The process won't hurt me at all. It's going to take all the pain away._

Bucky waves. _So, goodbye Steve, and hello. And thanks again._

The recording flickers off.

“Oh my god,” Natasha murmurs, a look of horror on her face.

Steve can't say anything, as he's biting down so hard on his knuckles that they're starting to bleed. Silent tears stream down his face. He takes three shuddering breaths, and removes his hand from his face. “T'Challa, when is this happening? We have to stop this.”

“It happened a month ago, Steve.” T'Challa looked hard at Steve and emphasised his next few words very carefully: “It was his choice.”

“It's the wrong choice!” Steve yelped.

“It was still his to make,” said T'Challa. “Now, do you want to see him? He has time set aside for you.”

Steve blinked and stood up so fast the chair fell over. “Of course.”

T'Challa took his arm again. “There are some things you must understand, Captain Rogers.” He looked over at Natasha, who looked as surprised as Steve had ever seen her, and since this was a woman who had met space aliens and Norse trickster gods without batting an eyelash, that wasn't a very comforting thing to see at all. “And Miss Romanova, I would appreciate your help in this. We all know Captain Rogers often tries to take things into his own hands.”

Natasha schooled her expression into a smirk, and replied with a light, “What, Steve? Disobey direct orders? Never.”

T'Challa laughed, and when he looked at Steve again, his mood was lighter. “You should know that your friend is very popular here. The staff all adore him. But when he came out of the procedure, he had a mental age of 12 years old. He has come back to a mostly adult level, but there are still many things he is re-learning. He will not recognise you, I am sorry to say. And we ask that you do not talk to him about the past. Only about the future.”

They walk through the building to an outside garden, lush already with the smell of frangipani, night-blooming jasmine and white roses, around a small, immaculate lawn.

Bucky is sitting cross-legged on the grass, feet bare, in white shorts and a white v-neck t-shirt. A nurse sits next to him and she is showing him how to weave the thin vines of jasmine together into a flower crown, and he does not hear them approach. He has a new arm: golden, this time (“a much lighter vibranium alloy. Not quite as strong as his old one, but strong enough that he is well balanced. An arm, not a weapon,” whispered T'Challa when he saw Steve's eyes skate over it.) He is clean-shaven and his hair is cut short; still a little longer than it was in his army days but not the ragged mess of the Winter Soldier. His body still has the broadness and densely packed muscle of the Winter Soldier, though. Thanks to the serum, that will never go away. It's still odd for Steve to see, makes his heart trip a little when he does, as he expects the slim, lithe kid he grew up with and instead there's this thing that's a cross between an underwear model and a panther.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, softly.

Bucky looks up and smiles his million-watt smile.

And Steve's heart breaks just a little bit more, because he never realised how much stress, how much worry, was etched into Bucky's face, until now, until it was all gone. He looked so _young_ all of a sudden.

“Hi. You must be my friends from before. T'Challa said you were coming.” Bucky waves golden fingers, then his eyes skate over all of them again and he bites his lower lip.

“Wow, all your friends are so good-looking,” says the nurse sitting with Bucky.

He giggles. “And they have all their limbs. I wonder why they're friends with _me?_ ”

Steve makes a noise like a dying whale, but before he can form actual words, T'Challa raises a finger. “Ah-ah,” he cautions. “Only the future.” Which is good, because part of Steve's head is yelling, _you're not my friend, my friend had a mouth that would make a longshoreman blush, will steal anything that isn't nailed down, is the best dancer and the biggest flirt in Brooklyn, and can shoot the pips off a playing card thrown in the air at 50 paces_ , and the other part of Steve's head is just curled up in a ball, rocking, and going _Buuuuucky; Buuucky_.....

Natasha saves the day, again. She plops down next to Bucky and picks up the discarded flower crown, tucking tendrils back into it and tidying it up. “I'm Natasha,” she said. “<I'm Russian. Do you speak Russian?>”

Bucky looked at her in confusion for a moment, then said, “<Yes. Um, apparently I do.>”

T'Challa sat down next to them, on a red and gold cloth that a nearby attendant swiftly had brought and laid out for him on the grass. “The language center is separate from the memory centers. That was not touched.” Then he turned to Bucky. “You can speak a lot of languages,” he said.

“Oh. Cool,” Bucky replied, glancing up at Steve, who was still standing up.

“S-Sorry,” Steve said, and sat down.

“What's your name?” Bucky said, and Steve could swear he was blushing a bit.

“Steve.”

Bucky bit his lower lip and looked down, definitely blushing. “I'm Bucky, but you know that already, don't you?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow, and after a little consideration said, “So, Bucky, do you know yet what you're going to do in Wakanda?”

At that, Bucky's face lit up. “Yes! Yes, I have a job and I leave tomorrow. I passed all my rehab phsyicals and I'm cleared to start.”

“You did great,” said the nurse, squeezing Bucky's flesh shoulder affectionately.

“I'm going to be a research assistant with a team of zoologists who are studying the wildlife in the northeast of Wakanda, which is really remote. There's a tribe of rare white tigers there, and gorillas, and elephants and a lot more.” Bucky kept looking at Steve throughout all of this, his delight clear on his face. “We're going to track them and see how many there are, and they've taught me how to use a really nice camera and I'll be taking pictures for them,” he said.

“Oh,” Steve said, unsettled by the little glances Bucky kept throwing his way. “That sounds... that sounds amazing.”

“Yeah, it's perfect,” Bucky said, running his hands through his hair. “I like animals, and I like being outside. I can't believe they hired me, though. There had to have been people with better qualifications.” He smiled again, looking Steve right in the eye. “Or, y'know, with _any_ qualifications.”

“Believe it or not, we have trouble filling the research jobs out in the bush,” T'Challa explained. “The young people all want to live in the cities. But Wakandan tradition is to live in peace and harmony with the environment, so we must constantly monitor our effect on the wildlife of our country.”

Natasha handed Bucky the flower crown, finished now. He twirled it in his fingers, then reached over and plopped it on Steve's head, before grinning and blushing again. “Wow,” he says, glancing up at Steve again.

“What?” Steve says. “You keep, uh, staring at me.” And Steve knows not to hope, because it's not a stare of recognition, or of confusion/puzzlement at all. It's something... else. Bucky doesn't recognise him at all, but is still staring at him.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, looking away. “Y-you're the most beautiful person I've ever seen.” Golden fingers pluck leaves of grass; hair falls down over eyes. “I'm sorry,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Is that something you're not supposed to say to people?”

Steve can't speak.

“Wakandans are very direct about matters of physical appearance, much more so than in the West,” the nurse says to Bucky. “You're just picking up our good habits.”

Then Natasha, because she's a little shit, nudges Bucky with her foot and says, “Bucky, do you have a crush on our Steve?”

And Steve wants to be furious with Natasha; his hands are clenched in his lap, but then Bucky smiles that million-watt smile again and says, “Is that what it is? When your stomach is made of butterflies when they're around?” Then he leans back in the grass and stretches out, languid and happy, in the late afternoon sun and says, “I've learned a new thing.”

Steve still can't speak, even if he is clenching his fists so hard his fingernails are making marks in his palm.

A light-skinned, freckled black woman comes in, wearing a threadbare flannel shirt over a faded tee and cargo shorts, thin, old silver bracelets jangling at her wrist. “Hi, I'm Dr Makeda, the head of our research station in the Northeast,” she says, warmly. “Bucky said he had friends coming to see him off.” She takes Steve's hand and Natasha's in turn, not shaking it, just clasping it between her hands, which are small, warm, and strong.

Then she holds a hand out to Bucky. “Sweetie, get up, we need to load the jeeps tonight, so you have to get your things and come help the team pack.”

Bucky takes her hand in his left one, and jumps to his feet effortlessly, not pulling on her hand at all. “C'mon, you know I have about three things.”

“The sign of a good field zoologist! You can fit everything you need to live happily in a backpack.” She bumps him affectionately. “But some of the equipment we are loading is quite heavy, and we could use a hand.”

“Okay.” Bucky turns to Steve and Natasha and waves, unsure. “Bye. Thanks for coming all this way. It was really great meeting you.”

T'Challa reaches out a hand. “Bucky, I have duties tomorrow, so I am afraid this is--”

But he is cut off, when Bucky steps in past the hand and hugs T'Challa instead. “Thank you so much, Your Majesty. I don't deserve all your kindness. I hope I can repay you someday for what you've done for me.”

Steve makes another dying whale noise, to himself.

T'Challa smiles as they break the hug. “Kindness is not transactional, Bucky. It is freely and gladly given, without expectation of return.”

“Still,” Bucky says, scuffing his bare feet in the grass.

“Take good care of him,” T'Challa says to Dr Makeda, who is waiting at Bucky's side, her petite, boyishly slim figure a contrast to his V-shaped bulk.

Dr Makeda takes Bucky by the arm. “We will, Your Majesty.”

And they leave down a small garden path towards another building.

Once Natasha is quite sure they are out of sight, she leans in to Steve and smacks him up the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for?” he glowers.

Natasha folds her arms. “How long do we have?”

“Speaking of long, I'm afraid I have a Council dinner to prepare for,” T'Challa said. “Abeni will drive you back to the villa.”

“Um, may I have a copy of the video?” Steve said, getting up and brushing off his trousers. Something fell off his head onto the ground – Bucky's flower crown. He picked it up again and held it, unsure what to do with it, afraid he would crush it.

Natasha reached forwards and plucked it out of Steve's hands. “Your Majesty, don't give him a copy of the video. He'll watch it 800 billion times and make himself sad.”

“Natasha, that is the last thing that exists of _my best friend_.” Steve growled.

“Except, you know, the actual living breathing version which somehow you are utterly failing to spend time with, from pretty much the moment you got him back.” Natasha narrowed her eyes. “But a video version is _easier_ , isn't it?”

T'Challa held up a hand as he walked off. “He may have the video. I will have it emailed to you.”

“I'm going to take a commercial flight home,” muttered Natasha. “Because I will actually assassinate you myself if you watch that video on repeat the entire trip back.”

“Yeah, you better fly commercial, then,” said Steve.

 

* * *

 

They are sitting drinking beers on the deck of the royal guest villa, which is cantilevered partially over a small waterfall, into a lake below. The harsh sounds of cuckoos and the cat-yowls of peacocks cut through the warm night, everything softened by the hum of the rushing water below them.

“Wow,” Sam said. “I... _wow_.”

“Do you have any idea why he took such a drastic step?” Sharon asked.

(Natasha puts her forehead down on the table.)

“I think I accidentally made him feel like he didn't matter to me,” Steve said, his voice almost a whisper.

“To be fair, you did find him again in the middle of essentially a superhero war orchestrated by a genocidal maniac with a grudge,” said Sharon. "You had other things to do."

“Yeah, but...” said Steve, peeling the label off his beer.

“Yanno, I did think it was kind of weird that after searching for him for so long you then--” Sam begins, but is pinched in the arm by Natasha.

“Sam. Vodka. Now.” Natasha says, still not lifting her forehead off the table.

Sam kicks her chair. “Natasha. Bourbon. Now.”

She lifts her head and grins at Sam and both of them go in to raid the hard liquor.

Sharon takes Steve's hand and squeezes it affectionately. “But he's happy now, isn't he?”

Steve nods, something sad twisting at the base of his stomach. “Sharon, he looks _great_. Maybe better than he's ever looked.”

“Isn't that what you want for him?”

 _I wanted to be the one to make him happy. I always made him happy before_ , Steve thinks. But the words feel awkward and shameful, like they don't want to be born. So instead he just nods again.

Sharon lifts his hand to her mouth and kisses his knuckles, one by one. She leaves little lipstick-marks. Steve has never liked lipstick, never liked the taste of it on lips. Even Peg would blot hers off for him. “Maybe this is for the best,” Sharon says. “What sort of life could he have lived, after what was done to him? All those horrible memories... plus the fact that he's basically a walking WMD, and every agency and shadow organisation would be trying to either recruit him or kill him for the rest of his life.”

“I know,” Steve says. “I wish I could have spent more time with him before this happened. He's the last person who knew me from before. He _was_ the last person.”

“You know we still have his notebooks, right?” Sharon said. “His backpack is in CIA custody. Do you want me to get it for you?”

He kisses her and it feels like betrayal.

_St Brendan finds Judas sitting on a rock in the middle of the Irish Sea, freezing cold. Judas explains that he lives in Hell, but the Devil lets him sit on the rock on Sundays and feast days, for a break. And just as Brendan talks to Judas, it is Sunday night, and demons from Hell come to take him below again. But Brendan yells at the devils, and threatens them, and makes them go back down to Hell and leave Judas up for one more night. He gives Judas warm clothes, and makes him comfortable for his borrowed hours. But then, come the dawn, Paradise sails away from Judas._

 

* * *

 

Steve looks up Dr Makeda and sends her a facebook message at 10pm, asking when they are leaving in the morning. He doesn't expect a response, but she writes back right away.

 

* * *

 

It is barely morning, the night sky's previously fierce cobalt paling to insignifigance, cut with streaks of pink just above the line of the thick and clamorous jungle. Steve is waiting outside the facility that Dr Makeda indicated, sipping strong Wakandan coffee from a thermos as Dr Makeda and another senior scientist check over the equipment packed to the three Land Rovers sitting by the kerb.

Steve doesn't hear Bucky approach but suddenly he is there, in a pale blue linen shirt that matches his eyes, and cargo shorts similar to Dr Makeda's. The Wakandan sunrise happening behind him is probably one of the top five most beautiful sunrises Steve has ever seen, but it has nothing on Bucky when he smiles.

“Hey, Steve! You came to see me off,” Bucky said, his joy obvious.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “There's something I forgot to give you last night.” And before he can second-guess himself, he puts down his thermos, steps forwards and throws his arms around Bucky, pulling him into a hug. The hug he's owed Bucky since Romania. Bucky hesitates for the briefest of moments then puts his arms around Steve and hugs back. His new arm is as warm as his human one, Steve thinks idly. Then he thinks with not a small amount of awe how well they fit together, how well they always have, no matter which one of them was smaller, which bigger. Now they were nearly the same size: Bucky maybe an inch shorter, and the body under the thin linen shirt hard and strong, without the slight softening layer of body fat that Steve had.

Steve never wanted to let go. All the important reasons that he couldn't find time to be with Bucky – Tony; the Accords; Zemo; even his relationship - they were falling apart like books made of ash. They had always been meaningless. This was his _friend_.

And Steve had been too damn busy being Captain America and not busy enough being Steve Rogers, and because of that, his friend was gone again, replaced by this gentle man-child who apparently had zero filter between his brain and his mouth. (Not that Bucky ever had much of one either, but most of what came out of Bucky's mouth was reprehensible filth.)

This strange, golden Bucky/not-Bucky still smelled like him, though. Still smelled like home.

Then Bucky broke the hug and, as he pulled away, kissed Steve.

It was nothing, just a bump of lips together, over before Steve was even conscious it was happening, Bucky's hands already leaving his body, leaving aching patches of absence.

Steve's mind was falling apart, thinking about their lips touching. It was electric and weird and so so brief and Steve pretty much had a full-body convulsion, grabbing Bucky and pulling him back in so he could make sure that kiss had really felt like his misfiring, spark-filled brain thought it had.

He stopped, his lips a hair's-breadth from Bucky's, close enough that they were sharing the same breath. And he realised he'd never been so terrified in his life as he was right at this very moment.

Bucky closed the distance, touching lips again, and Steve had enough electricity thrumming through him to light up the entire country as Bucky's mouth smiled against his and whispered, “I don't remember kissing anyone, so I might not be very good at it.”

“My first kiss was you,” Steve said, breathless, his brain still full of sparks.

“And now my first kiss is you,” said Bucky, still smiling. Then he pressed his body against Steve, carding his hands through Steve's hair, and he licked into Steve's mouth, claiming it, hot and urgent.

Everything was short-circuiting. Steve couldn't think. He could barely stand. He didn't have strong sexual responses to things. He never had. But right now, on some streetcorner in Wakanda at the crack of dawn, he is lit up like a Roman candle and hard, absolutely throbbingly erect in a way that has _never_ happened to him before, as the ghost of his best friend growls and tugs gently on his lower lip.

“You may not remember kissing, but holy hell Buck, you remember _how_ to kiss,” Steve moans in Bucky's ear, as Bucky finds a spot on Steve's neck that seems wired straight to his dick, and suckles on it.

The horn of the lead Jeep lets out a loud bleat, and both Steve and Bucky jump a little, suddenly aware again of where they are, of what is about to happen.

“Uh...” says Bucky, eyes darting to the waiting Jeeps.

Steve grabs Bucky's hips and pulls him in for one last kiss. He tries to copy some of the things Bucky had done to him that had felt like liquid sin, and is rewarded by a low, rumbling moan.

He pushes Bucky away, though everything in his body is screaming for him not to, and lays a finger over Bucky's lips, swollen and wet from kissing. “Be safe,” Steve says.

“Come visit,” Bucky murmurs, trailing his fingers along Steve's obliques, under his t-shirt. “We have white tigers. And me.”

Steve bites his lower lip and nods. He can't trust his mouth right now. It doesn't want words.

Bucky kisses him one last time, like the first kiss, just a gentle brushing of lips, and then he climbs into the jeep.

Steve waves as the three jeeps take off down the empty morning streets towards the Northeast Highway, his thermos held carefully to hide the erection he still has. He watches until the jeeps are out of sight.

Then he sits down right there on the sidewalk and puts his head in his hands. Everything is going so wrong, and so right, all at the same time, and he has no idea what to do.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Holy shit, I have no idea how this happened. I just... my brain... and blah, here it is. 
> 
> There may be more chapters? But I really need to finish my other series, and I've got a Big Bang story that needs to happen too (but is outlined in probably way too much detail). Your comments give me life and encourage me to further heights of irresponsibility in fiction. 
> 
> [This work and its sequel are also on Wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/myworks/75724901-from-you-have-i-been-absent-in-the-spring), if that is a thing you do.
> 
> By the way, if you like my writing, I have a series called [The Murder Ballads](http://archiveofourown.org/series/413774) you might enjoy, which is a post TWS bamf!bucky/Steve action-thriller, as well as [Lucky Seven](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7033105/chapters/16002481), a Cap!Steve/Modern!Bucky AU that's all UST and tattoos and motorcycles and cliffhangers. 
> 
> Reference notes:
> 
> I've taken a little poetic licence with the tale of St Brendan; medievalists don't kill me. 
> 
> The St Sebastian thing is not a Sebastian Stan reference. Trust me, I was an art history major and looked at hella paintings. St Sebastian is totally the hot one among the saints and I can prove this with graphs and charts. (Also he did survive his martyrdom, which is rare.) 
> 
> (story title from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
> 
> UPDATE: Now by popular demand with sequel. Just hit "next" for the concluding* part in the series, From You Have I Been Absent In The Spring.
> 
> *unless I just write some porn as a coda.


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